Barbarian / DeathSword - Wishlist.

[CraigsBar]

Having spent a wonderful evening playing the PlusPatch Barbarian and DeathSword I came to one conclusion...


Would anyone be interested in creating a combination version of this excellent game.


The Random backdrops and improved gameplay (More opponents etc) from Deathsword combined with the wonderful visuals of the Barbarian plus patch would make a wonderful contender for the first unofficial GX4000 cart. If that ever happens.


If this were combined with PlayCity soundtrack (Using the external AY's for sound and the internal one for a tune, or vice versa) the game would be amazing.


Any takers? these are 2 excellent conversions of a good game, but a combination of the 2 would make one awesome game.


Craig

[McKlain]

What is that "pluspatch" barbarian that you are talking about?

[NiNxPe]

Something like this  ? :

[attachimg=1]  [attachimg=2]

[CraigsBar]

What is that "pluspatch" barbarian that you are talking about?

this one.....
http://cpcrulez.fr/GamesDL_hack/index.php

Barbarian 1 plusedition. It looks gorgeous! Just no random background and only 2 fighter race/clothes combinations.

[McKlain]

Never heard about it before. Who did it?

[Carnivius]

I prefer the regular CPC version.   The Plus Patch version has some minor improvements but mostly looks worse to me due to too many similar regular greys (use some hue shifting please, this is not the C64...) and some really nasty 'banding/pillow-shading' was added to the logo's papery background which I found really off-putting.  I find the original CPC version's graphics much more atmospheric and pleasingly vibrant.   But then I'm not a big fan of the game anyways.

[McKlain]

What's the .hfe file for?

[CraigsBar]

A HxC floppy emulator.

[TFM]

Something like this  ? :

[attachimg=1]  [attachimg=2]

Well... it should have some Plus sprites then ,-)

[CraigsBar]

Something like this  ? :

[attachimg=1]  [attachimg=2]

Is that real or a Mock-up. If real where does it come from?

[MacDeath]

To have the barbarian's sprite sport more colours, you can't just hack this game, you would need a proper new engine...

Barbarian uses 2bpp graphics (= mode1) and converts them into mode0 when it drws the warriors sprites... (tiles by tiles...) hence the 3 inks + transparency ink...

it converts and uses reserved colours for the opponent warrior sprite.

yeah quite strange but it was a way to provide some software palette swap, and also get all the sprite variant to fit the 64K RAM specs...
Plus it was a way to use the same sprites graphics as for C64 or CGA PC version...

[CraigsBar]

So the long and short of it is.... The chances of getting the graphics from the Pluspatch added to DeathSword 128k when a plus machine (or GX4000) is detected are pretty much nil?

[MacDeath]

from a CPC (old) games, you may redo graphics, or alter the colours/palette, but the soft sprite routines would need to be entirely redone to use hardsprites... or even PLUS features (interrups, sounds...)



as this game is quite simple : fixed screen, only 2 main sprites... well, may be "easier" to simply redo the game.
well, got to also manage collisions, wounds and artificial intelligence (sort of)

Woudl be interesting to check if the 16 hardsprites could be used for a proper 1vs1 fight game... not sure they would refresh fast enough and as they are coded in 8bpp (despite only 16 inks) this would pack quite a lot of graphic datas actually for a good game witha lot of positions.

[arnoldemu]

It may be good to disassemble the game rewrite the graphics part but keep the game logic because it may be hard to copy it if it was done from the beginning. This is my advice to the person who tries this. When I say hard to copy the logic I mean to reprogram the two player ai for example so that it plays the same as the original.

[Sykobee (Briggsy)]

I imagine a plus enhanced version would actually use the hard sprites for static spot effects (like switchblade) rather than the animated characters, due to the restrictions imposed by the sprite implementation in the plus. E.g., birds in the sky, puddles of blood, and so on.

[CraigsBar]

I imagine a plus enhanced version would actually use the hard sprites for static spot effects (like switchblade) rather than the animated characters, due to the restrictions imposed by the sprite implementation in the plus. E.g., birds in the sky, puddles of blood, and so on.

puddles of blood, that sounds good.

[Gryzor]

Like.

Also, non-respawnable enemies when you progress